Trying to fit it all in...

53 days until my next attempt to qualify for Boston.

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After a good week of training while on vacation, I had an o.k. week of training last week. After a mid-week, 10-mile hilly run, my calf was a bit sore. Two days later, after some mile intervals on the track, it was even worse. I read a bit about calf strains on the internet, and was alarmed that they might require several weeks of non-running for recovery.

However, I tried a 16.2 mile long-run (4 times around my town 5.4 mile town loop), and was o.k., calf-wise. I was tired at the end of the last loop, but perhaps not quite as exhausted as I'd been when I last tried this loop. Earlier in the week I thought I might go for a 20-miler for this long run, but with the sore calf I thought I'd just see what I could do. On the day, I only had the energy and endurance to do 16 miles.

My schedule calls for a 20-miler this weekend, but there's also an 11-mile road race that I'm planning to do. I might try the 20-miler next week.

This isn't optimal. One problem with this is that I don't have a lot of open weekends after this for more 20-milers. I really want to get comfortable at this distance, as I think my lack of distance work really hurt me in the Edinburgh marathon.

For now I'm going to focus on getting in a good week's training. I didn't run on Monday after my 16-miler the day before. Yesterday I played full-court basketball for nearly 2 hours, and I count this as cross-training. Today I did my town loop in the morning. If I can run each day for the next three days, and run a good race on Sunday, it should be a reasonable week.

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During the past week I finished re-reading Haruki Marakami's What I talk about when I talk about running. Marakmi is a novelist, but the book is an account of his running career and his preparations for the New York Marathon. I really enjoyed his calm style of writing, his awareness of aging, and his descriptions of running by the Charles river in Boston.